


Crimes of Fashion

by sue_denimme



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-29
Updated: 2012-01-29
Packaged: 2017-10-30 07:32:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/329327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sue_denimme/pseuds/sue_denimme
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor's sartorial past comes back to haunt him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Crimes of Fashion

He was only about halfway from the control room to storage area number twelve -- the one where he kept most of his spare parts -- when he heard the scream.

Not a common sound in the TARDIS. In fact, he had been doing admirably well lately in picking traveling companions who weren't prone to screeching bloody murder whenever they were a little startled. (Sometimes he'd swear he could still hear his ears ringing from Mel.) Rose had tended to content herself with a gasp, while Martha had been more of an "oh my God" girl, and Donna -- well, Donna was a bellower. Usually.

Come to think of it, that scream had had rather a bellowy quality to it.

He broke into a run, his trainers squeaking slightly against the floor as he changed course. The TARDIS obligingly supplied him with a mental image of where Donna was: the wardrobe. The image was tinged with pink, a sign that the ship was more amused than alarmed. Well, that was a relief.

Still, a scream was a scream.

He found Donna not where he would have expected, in the women's section, but in the men's section, way back in the furthest corner. He himself tended to enter this area only when he needed new clothes after regenerating, or on the very rare occasions when he felt the urge to dress for a particular era or climate. Once he'd settled on a look, all its variations were kept in his quarters, for convenience's sake. Therefore, most of the time, the wardrobe was more or less the exclusive domain of whoever he was traveling with at the moment.

She was standing with her back to him. If anything was wrong, he couldn't immediately discern what it was.

"Donna? You all right?"

She didn't answer.

"I heard you scr -- er, call out. What...?"

Slowly, Donna turned around. She held up what was in her hands. The Doctor blanched.

On one hanger was a pair of yellow trousers with brown stripes, and a really ugly vest; wound around the neck of it was a blue cravat with white polka dots. On the other hanger was quite possibly the most eye-wateringly awful nightmare collection of clashing colors and mismatched patchwork patterns that had ever been assembled together into one coat.

"Would you mind," Donna said, in an almost eerily calm and measured voice, "telling me just _who_ in the _hell_ would ever wear _this_ , and what the _hell_ it's doing in the wardrobe?"

The Doctor -- the Last of the Time Lords, the Oncoming Storm, the man with the brilliant mind that had solved myriad cosmic crises and outwitted the most cunning intergalactic villains for centuries throughout time and space without even breaking a sweat -- said, "Er..."

Donna Noble -- the temp from Chiswick -- narrowed her eyes at him. Then widened them again in dawning comprehension. "Oh...my...God. It's yours, isn't it?" A smile spread slowly across her face.

As the Doctor saw it, right now he had three options.

He could bluster, and claim he'd never seen those clothes before in his life. She might believe him. And a Sontaran might turn up right now and offer him a banana.

He could regenerate on the spot from sheer embarrassment. That had its possibilities, but no, he happened to like this incarnation. All right, so it did tend to run off at the mouth, and lick strange things, and it apparently had quite a talent for pissing off royalty, and the voice did go a bit squeaky sometimes, and what was this thing it had about little shops? But it was a good height, had really nice hair (albeit not ginger), and was overall rather attractive. And he wasn't the only one who thought so. There'd been Rose, and Martha, and he was fairly sure that even Jack had given it a look or two. (Well, Jack looked at anything vaguely humanoid that had a pulse, but still...)

Or...he _could_...fess up.

"Yep," he said, with what he thought sounded like just the right amount of indifference. "Guilty."

He had the satisfaction of seeing Donna's jaw practically hit the floor. "What?"

"I said guilty. It's a fair cop. Take me in and book me." He held out his hands, wrists together, as if waiting for a pair of handcuffs to be clapped round them.

Her brow furrowed. "You're not gonna even try to deny it?"

The Doctor shrugged. "What's the point?"

Donna shoved the coat at him, and when he took it, she reached up and laid the back of her hand against his forehead. "Are you feeling all right?"

"Yeah. Peachy, in fact."

"'Cause I thought right about now you'd be trying to distract me with some story about the Lost Moon of Poosh, or telling me how you had a circus clown traveling with you for a while and he left these here, or -- "

"Nope." He grinned cheerfully at her. "They're mine."

"No way. You're having me on, aren't you?" She was glaring at him suspiciously now.

The Doctor assumed his most innocent air. "No! Me, having you on? Of course not. Why would I do that?"

Donna's scowl deepened. "Okay then, space man, if that coat's yours, put it on."

"All right." He took the coat off its hanger, gave the hanger to her, and slipped his arms into the sleeves. Then he turned around, modeling it for her. It swamped him, naturally; the incarnation that had worn this had been quite a bit burlier than the current one, after all. (Had he really been that big, though? No wonder Mel had been at him with the carrot juice.)

"That doesn't even fit you!" she informed him, with an air of triumph. "You're practically swimming in that thing. And the sleeves are too short. No way is that yours."

"Okay, fine, don't believe me, then." The Doctor managed what he thought was a rather convincing injured tone as he let the coat slide off him again, caught it by the sleeve, and put it back on the hanger.

He made a mental note never to tell her about regeneration unless it became absolutely necessary.

"You are _such_ a liar," Donna groused, but she let him take the rest of the outfit from her and put it back into its closet. "You expect me to believe you'd wear that? Mr. Addicted-To-Pinstripes? Mind you, it'd make a fantastic weapon if you did. Either you'd blind the bad guys or they'd kill themselves laughing."

He gave her his best rueful smile. "No fool, you. Don't know what I was thinking."

Just as he was turning away, congratulating himself on his acting, not to mention his successful use of reverse psychology, he heard a throat being cleared.

"Ahem. Space man. What about these, then?"

He looked, and saw her holding up a question-mark-collar shirt, a jumper studded with question marks, and an umbrella with a question-mark-shaped handle.

"Er...Donna, have I ever told you about the time I met William Shakespeare? Lovely man..."

 

~end


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